immigration to the united states
...reat Wave of immigration in the early 20th century, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. was about half what it is today, though the percentage of the population was slightly higher. Moreover, immigration has become the determinate factor in U.S. population growth: The 8.6 million immigrants who indicated that they had arrived between 1990 and 1998 represent 42 percent of the 20.4 million increase in the total U.S. population since 1990. These immigrants were arriving from all over the world. While the Irish were a majority in the 1800s, it shifted to eastern European countries, such as Russia, Austria, Hungary and Italy in the beginning of the 20th century. Many of them were Jews, trying to escape religious prosecution. Also northern Europeans, such as Danes, Norwegians and Swedes entered the U.S. during 1870’s to 1920’s to escape poverty and the shortage of farmland. With the outbreak of World War I, the numbers of European immigrants declined sharply. A new wave of immigrants, this time from Mexico, swept over the United States of America. They moved here from 1910 to the 1920's to escape the Mexican Revolution of 1910, low wages, and unemployment. About 700,000 immigrated. In about 1950, as a result of political turmoil, many Cuban families tried to escape Castro’s dictatorship and migrated to the United States. Many of these people were wealthy and well educated. Because America tried to win the favor of the Cubans to overthrow Castro’s rule, they granted these people asylum and offered federal help. Later in the century, more poor farmers migrated, often relatives of the first immigrants, looking for better jobs and higher wages. But the Cuban government took advantage of this, and sent about 125,000 people called The Marielitos to the U.S. Many of these were criminals, mentally ill, or unskilled workers. They were sent to Miami and the U.S. government allowed these people to enter, not aware of these peoples background. Some were put in American prisons, but rehabilitated and released. Yet only a few were returned to Cuba; instead, they were used by the American government to plan and carry out the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Another major group of immigrants came from the East; many Japanese and Chinese entered the United States at the turn of the century. More than half of the Japanese immigrants settled in Hawaii, while mostly all Chinese settled on the mainland in areas such as San Francisco. From 1885 through 1894, over 28,000 Japanese migrated to Hawaii, the vast majority being single men. Anticipating the legislation of American laws against contract labor to Hawaii in 1900, after the American takeover of the islands, Hawaiian plantation owners imported more than 26,000 contract laborers from Japan in 1899, in order to beat the ban- the largest number ever admitted in a single year. By 1910, still four times as many immigrants lived in Hawaii as on the mainland. The Chinese were the first Asian immigrants ever to enter the U.S. in the 1800’s due to the California Gold Rush. The first Chinese immigrants were wealthy artisans and skilled merchants, therefore welcomed in the U.S. For the first few years they were greatly receipted by the public, government officials, and especially by employers, for they were renowned for their hard work and dependability. However, after a much larger group of coolies, unskilled laborers usually working for very little pay, migrated to the U.S. in the mid 1800's, American attitudes became negative and hostile, and their immigration began to fall drastically. Because of laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, the highly imbalanced male to female ratio, and the thousands of immig...